Category: Frankenstein: The True Story: (1973)

Ages from the famous ‘boiler scene’ as the tormented Aunt Fanny in Welles’ superior to Citizen Kane’s The Magnificent Ambersons. Fanny to the self-obsessed & spoiled Georgie “It’s not hot!!! it’s cold, the plumbers disconnected it… I wouldn’t mind if they hadn’t…! I wouldn’t mind if it burned!!!”

A simple and wholesome beginning… Agnes Robertson Moorehead was born on December 6th, 1900 in Clinton, Massachusetts. Her mother was a mezzo-soprano and her father was a Presbyterian minister whose work eventually moved the family to St. Louis, Missouri. She started her acting career on stage at the age of 3, and by the time she was 12 she was active in the St. Louis Municipal Opera as a dancer and singer. She went to college for biology at Muskingum College in Ohio, but remained active in acting. After college she moved to Wisconsin (her family was now in Reedsburg, Wisconsin), taught drama and English at local schools. She earned a Masters in English at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Agnes eventually would earn a doctorate from Bradley University.

My partner Wendy and I happened to have lived in Madison for a wonderful 8 years while she was in grad school at the University of Wisconsin. I wrote my favorite album Fools & Orphans while living on Starkweather Creek on the East side of town. So Agnes’ presence there is all the more sweet to me…

To earn the money she would need, not only to eat but to build toward her dream of heading to New York City and acting school, she taught English, Speech and Ancient History at Centralized High School in Soldiers Grove. Teaching was something she maintained a strong affection for.

When she eventually saved enough money to get to New York City she audition for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in the summer of 1926- she was accepted. I’m reading Charles Tranberg’s wonderful book, she talks about starving herself, being grateful for enough loose change to buy a buttered roll from the Automat …

Afterward she moved to New York City and enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Agnes studied with Charles Jehlinger at The (AADA) American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where he taught people ‘imagination’ is the key!

Not making it on Broadway during the 30s, she used her marvelous voice to make a name for herself in the media of radio. She began performing as many as six shows each day. During her radio performances she met Orson Welles, and Joseph Cotton and the three formed the famous Mercury Players Theatre. Agnes made her film debut in 1941 in Orson Welles’ ‘Citizen Kane’. She went on to play vital, high-spirited saucy & strong female roles in film and television eventually landing the iconic role as “Endora”on the popular & timelessly beloved television show “Bewitched” (1964-1972). She was married twice but eventually lived alone, enjoying solitude. She died quietly away from friends and the public, from lung cancer that had spread from her Uterus, she succumbed in 1974 in Rochester Minnesota. With Agnes’ work ethic she had maintained a busy schedule though drained and tired from the illness, performing hours on the stage and doing television appearances until she could no longer manage.

IMDb tidbit- Agnes’ death from cancer is often linked to other actors and crew members who worked on The Conqueror (1956). Including Susan Hayward, John Wayne and director Dick Powell, to name a few. The conspiracy theory behind the strong beliefs are that they were exposed while on location at the site which received heavy fallout from nuclear testing at the (then) Nevada Proving Grounds.

Fiercely private. Considered not beautiful because of her ‘hawk like’ face. I would boldly beg to disagree. Agnes Moorehead has a beauty that transcends the quaint and lovely upturned nose. She has a regal beauty as if royalty run in her veins, with a sage otherworldlyness and a voice like a chameleon that can change it’s tone and tenor to fit her myriad characterizations. I wish she and hope she knew that although she was THE consummate character actress for the ages, she too was as beautiful as any other leading star with a deep & fiery magnetism that draws you in ~

Agnes had that spark in her, since she was a very little Agnes, embodying, manifesting & emoting like the characters from the books she read and from theater. Her adoring father or mother would find her re-enacting scenes in her room!

Here’s a beautifully written snapshot of Agnes Moorehead by The Red List– data base by Romuald Leblond & Jessica Vaillat

“Wanting to become a comedian from a young age – her mother had become accustomed to discovering her daughter in her imaginary world and often asked her: ‘Who are you today, Agnes?’ – Agnes Moorehead appeared regularly on Broadway stages during the late 1920s. She rapidly became a celebrated radio actress and joined Orson Welles’s Mercury Theater on the Air from 1940. In 1941, Orson Welles offered the ‘Fabulous Redhead’ her first film role in Citizen Kane as the cruel and bitter mother of the lead role. The part soon shaped the other roles Agnes Moorehead would be offered while they privileged heartless authoritarian or neurotic women such as the menacing aunt of Johnny Belinda, in 1948. In 1943, on the radio, the American comedian delivered one of her most legendary performances in Sorry, Wrong Number for which she created an exhausting and dynamic presentation – ‘radiant and terrifying’. In 1964, she was cast as Samantha Steven’s sarcastic and buoyant mother, in Bewitched and, although she disliked the rapid pace of television series, the show helped install the actress in the pantheon of American pop culture icons. Quite an irony for a woman who didn’t ‘particularly want to be identified as a witch.”

Agnes Moorehead went on from her imaginative childhood musings to play some of the most colorful characters on stage, radio, film and television- perhaps her persona had been ‘shaped by Citizen Kane’but Agnes obviously had a range of emotions and archetypes she could readily tap into as she is a natural, authentic artist… making her a cultural icon recognized by so many people & a even a new generation of avid fans!

Tranberg’s book is a wonderful read, he discusses from the beginning, the wealth of material he found at the historical society at the University of Wisconsin’s Historical Society. It’ is a marvelous place with marble floors warn down by years and the warm & musty smell of by-gone years, the building holds the archives to so many historical documents and films. For Agnes Moorehead, 159 boxes of material to be precise. He was not just a fan of Endora but her performances on old time radio in which she really shined. His book hints that her fire and brimstone Rev. John Moorehead with his sermons had a bit of the frustrated actor in the man, and why Aggie felt drawn to theater in the first place. He also read Shakespeare to the children. Her mother Molly was the boisterous outgoing flamboyant one who lived to be 106 and died in 1990… always saying what was on her mind, unless it was a strictly personal subject… sound familiar?

He also writes about Agnes’ spirituality and religious devoutness. That is ‘wasn’t a gimmick or publicity stunt’she really was a devoted Christian. It might cause heads to tilt, how such a fundamentalist woman would pick a career where she would be surrounded by creative types, often gay people that would become her friends. And though she was not thrilled with the idea of playing a witch, she certainly conjured the most iconic embodiment of the vexing & colorful Endora.

“Lavender is just pink trying to be purple” she paraphrased Proust… by Quint Benedetti from his book- (My Travels with) Agnes Moorehead: The Lavender Lady: (more BEWITCHING than Endora)– he goes onto to say, “And now I can see all the hues of her personality in that statement: the royalty, the naivete, the selfhishness, the piercing intuition and sometimes the astonishing lack of it (her two marriages), the phoniness and the irrepressible humanity it contained, the coldness and the longing to be warm and sometimes the warmth, the insecurity and the yearning to be loved, the human simplicity touching greatness. Agnes Moorehead in a way did what so many actor and actresses never did. She left her mark on society both as an actress and as a person.” Benedetti knew Agnes Moorehead for ten years and was her personal assistant for five of those years.

In her long & unforgettable career – Agnes Moorehead’s film debut as Charles Foster Kane’s picture of stoic motherhood, the bitter and icy cold Mary Kane.

Stoic Motherhood-Mary Kane in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941)

She went on to play the emotionally tortured Aunt Fanny in what Charles Transberg rightly refers to Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons as ‘a mangled masterpiece’ I would give anything to see the footage that RKO hacked to pieces… and the ending that should have been, where Fanny is playing cards in the boarding house with the other old maids. The more nihilistic coda that RKO feared would turn the public off in the midst of WWII.

Aunt Fanny-“I know what you’re gonna do… you’re gonna leave me in the lurch…”The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) directed by Orson Welles co-starring Joseph Cotton. Agnes Moorehead plays poor Aunt Fanny-Image courtesy of The Red ListGeorgie (Tim Holt) , Uncle Jack (Ray Collins) and Aunt Fanny- The milk and cake indulgence scene. Jack tells Georgie later after teasing her “Can’t think of anything Aggie does have except her feelings for Morgan.”Fanny-“Can’t you see that I approve of what you’re doing?” Georgie (Tim Holt)-“What the heck is wrong with you” Fanny-“Oh you’re always picking on me, always… every since you were a little boy.” Georgie-“Oh my gosh”Fanny- “You wouldn’t treat anybody in the world like this, except old Fanny Old Fanny you say nobody but Old Fanny so … I’ll kick her! Nobody will resent it. I’ll kick her all I want to and you’re right, I haven’t got anything in the world since my brother died. Nobody nothing.”

Agnes Moorehead as the heartless & cruel Mrs. Reed who sends young Jane away to Thornfield in Jane Eyre-aside from mothers, aunts spinsters & old maids, Moorehead performs her first evil character! in director Robert Stevenson’s adaptation of Jane Eyre (1943)

Agnes Moorehead in Mrs. Parkington directed by Tay Garnett, 1944- courtesy The Red ListHumphrey Bogart and Agnes Moorehead in Dark Passage directed by Delmer Daves, 1947Agnes Moorehead in The Women in White directed by Peter Godfrey, 1948-courtesy of The Red ListJames Stewart, Agnes Moorehead and June Allyson in The Stratton Story directed by Sam Wood, 1949- courtesy The Red ListAgnes Moorehead for Government Girl directed by Dudley Nichols, 1943-courtesy The Red ListAgnes Moorehead as Countess Zoe and Hedy Lamarr as Princess Veronica in Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945) Agnes Moorehead publicity shot for The Lost Moment directed by Martin Gabel, 1947courtesy of-theredlist-Edward G. Robinson and Agnes Moorehead in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes directed by Roy Rowland, 1945Agnes Moorehead with Moira Shearer in Story of Three Loves:The Jealous Lover directed by Gottfried Reinhardt, 1953Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman and Agnes Moorehead in All That Heaven Allows 1955 directed by Douglas SirkAgnes Moorehead and Tallulah Bankhead in Main Street to Broadway directed by Tay Garnett, 1953 Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead as mystery writer Cornelia Van Gorder in The Bat directed by Crane Wilbur, 1959Agnes Moorehead and Tyrone Power on the set of Untamed directed by Henry King, 1955-courtesy of The Red ListAgnes Moorehead and Kim Novak in Jeanne Eagels directed by George Sidney, 1957Agnes Moorehead as the kindly Warden Bond and Eleanor Parker in Caged directed by John Cromwell, 1950 One of THE best women in prison films :courtesy of The Red ListAgnes Moorehead as the irascible Velma Cruthers in Robert Aldrich’s Grand Dame Southern Gothic follow up to What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962)

Charles Boyer, Agnes and Sir Cedric Hardwicke in the stage production of Don Juan in HellAgnes Moorehead in Don Juan in Hell on Broadway, 1952- Image courtesy of The Red List

Agnes Moorehead in Don Juan in Hell on Broadway, 1952-Image courtesy of The Red ListAgnes Moorehead in the stage version of the musical Gigi, 1973-image courtesy of The Red List

Selected Radio:– Mercury Theater founded with Orson Welles- Mysteries in Paris, The Gumps, The New Penny, The March of Time (1967-38), The Shadow (1937-39), The Mercury Theater of the Air (ensemble) The Campbell Playhouse, The Cavalcade of America (1938-41), Mayor of the Town

Lionel Barrymore and Agnes Moorehead for The Mayor of the Town, NBC Radio, 1943. For 7 years Moorehead would perfect her persona as the Mayor’s grousy housekeeper Marilly, a little of Marilly would emerge again as part of her Velma in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964.

(1942-49), Suspense (1942-1960.) And of course in 1945 she played the women-in-peril-(in bed) Mrs. Stevenson in the CBS radio mystery program Suspense- Sorry,Wrong Number, which became “radio’s most famous play.”

According to Charles Tranberg, Agnes was offered a supportive role in the film version starring Barbara Stanwyck, saying that she wisely turned it down, coming to understand that she would always be considered a ‘character actress’ and not a leading lady. This would influence her decision to focus more on the stage, beginning with her affiliation with the acclaimed Don Juan in Hell and later her very popular one-woman show.

On December 10, 2008 Celebrating Moorehead’s 108th anniversary on Turner Classic Movies- Moira Finnie writing for Movie Morlocks published a wonderful interview with Tranberg when asked if Agnes enjoyed both the mediums of radio and stage, he answered “I think she liked the challenges offered by all he mediums she worked on. The stage because it’s proximity in front of an audience. Radio because she had to create a complex characterization without being seen and could use her voice in many different ways. Film because it offered her the opportunity to visualize a characterization. Television because of its intimacy.”

Agnes Moorehead and Orson Welles with The Mercury Theater’s radio production of Dracula

Moira Finnie’s piece is wonderfully insightful and witty. While watching David O Selznick’s Since You Went Away (1945) “It struck me for the hundredth time that the presence of Agnes Moorehead in many classic and not so classic films was often what gave a movie a spine.”

“She proved her versatility throughout her career. She arranged her aquiline features accordingly to convey a believable briskness, sometimes comforting, sometimes disapproving. She most often appeared as a pragmatic presence in many films that have etched themselves on our collective memory.”

Moira Finnie aptly says it perfectly, honing in on the essence of what truly makes Agnes Moorehead such a powerful performer, “The actress could shift her characterizations easily from vinegary disapproval to warmly compassionate to richly detailed portraits of good and evil women.”

Nominated four times for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Mrs. Parkington (1944),Johnny Belinda (1948) and of course as Velma in director Robert Aldrich’s Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

It is the vitriolic, cantankerous yet loyal & righteous companion Velma to Bette Davis’ tragic southern Gothic has- been belle Charlotte that won my heart. Moorehead brought to life a raw and rugged plain quality of humanness that touched me so deeply, as did Davis’ incredible performance.

How impressed I was with her pantomime in The Invaders credited as ‘The Woman’ in Rod Serling’s sociological anthology fantasy series Twilight Zone… Moorehead had no dialogue in the episode yet she demonstrated so much art and emotion from her ‘primal woman’s’ body language.

Credited as The Woman… here Agnes plays The Primal woman in Rod Serling’s The Invaders episode of The Twilight Zone aired on Jan. 27 1961Moorehead’s use of body language and her knowledge of pantomime brought to life a primal undomesticated women from ‘a’ planet terrorized by invaders who didn’t need to speak one word to convey her fear or instinct self preservation.

She did win a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress -Laurel Award 2nd place for Top Supporting Performance for Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964.

For many people she will be remembered as Endora, Samantha and Darrin Steven’s (the fabulous-Dick York) caustic ill-provoking mother-in-law from the netherworld? who hands down the legacy of being Bewitched… from 1964-1972. Initially Moorehead had turned down the role of Endora, and it wasn’t until Elizabeth Montgomery herself asked the actress to join the cast, never expecting it to last more than one season!

Agnes Moorehead, Elizabeth Montgomery, and Dick York in Bewitched.

Moorehead did her string of horror films in the 70s that featured many fine actresses who had played fine ladies in their day, only to find Grand Dame Guignol roles waiting for them on the other side of fabulous fame…